Comments

1
That rules.
2
wow that's like the most annoying webpage on the internet

talk about socially inept grammar nazis...

isn't CMOS depreciated by now?
3
Considering the amount of utterly incorrect, moronic spelling and punctuation I see on the webs every day of my life, nothing would surprise me anymore.
4
What always strikes me in grammar discussions is that the grammar police tend to believe and act as though grammar follows some coherent set of logical rules, such that, were we not merely stupid, we'd understand these basic rules and there'd be no questions.

Alas...English grammar is not always logical in it's construction, and it's the variances, even though they be few, that cause uncertainty in the system.
5
Oh my god, someone really was feeling cranky:

"As you can see here, correct isn’t always pretty. So you aren’t weird; you’re a writer, and one of the things that makes you a writer is that you’re sensitive to ugliness. Once you’re sensitive to clichés, you’ll be all set."
6
I recall reading about this in Harper's a couple of years ago. I LOVE the people who write for that page!
7
...grammar is not always logical in it's construction, and it's the variances...

indeed, it is
8
Well, Timothy, you're correct - up to a point. However, there are hard and fast rules. For example, "English grammar is not always logical in it's construction" is a grammatically incorrect sentence any way you slice it. "It's" is a contraction of "it is;" I think you were looking for the word "its."
9
I'm terrible with grammar, and still find it all endlessly fascinating. Also, what #4 said.

I always thought you guys used the AP Stylebook. Does CMOS suggest a lowercase "the" in front of band names (or similar), i.e. the Beatles vs. The Beatles?
10
Re: "grammar nazis", "grammar police".

This is a style manual. It's there for writers and editors to turn to when they need to know what's grammatically acceptable--so they can do their jobs.
11
#8 - that's a great example, because the sentence you noticed the mistake in is a perfect illustration of Timothy's point, being that "it's" apostrophe, if you didn't know better, might imply possessive, which we are taught sometimes warrants one, but in fact is only valid in this case if it's a conjunction.

I feel bad for the grammarians reading this thread that had to suffer through all my commas just now.
12
Put the boots to him, medium style.
13
"I feel bad for the grammarians reading this thread that had to suffer through all my commas just now. "

Who, not that. Grammarians are people. "...WHO had to suffer..."

Sorry, but it is a grammar thread.
14
#13 - Point taken, but admit it, you're not sorry.
15
What Style Manual did Sarah use for her resignation speech last week?
16
@15

"All of 'em."
17

Ahem -- the grammar committee have ruled that you don't go "to U.K.", you go to "the" U.K.

O.K.?
18
shit -- "'to U.K.,'" etc.
19
When you went to U.K., did you visit the Scotland?
20
@17: "has"?
21
20 - That depends which side of the Atlantic you're on.

If anyone can think of a way I could have ended that sentence without a preposition AND without sounding stupid, I'd be glad to hear it.
22
That's hilarious. I'm subscribed to Bad Questions for Yahoo Answers, and had to double check my feed to make sure this was Slog.
23
@21 I just spent a good minute trying to do that. And I couldn't.
24
Doh! And I even know and understand contractions and apostrophes especially in regards to "its" and "it's." So, fail on my part.

To that end...I'm always stumped by the period and the quotation mark. In the above sentence, did I end it correctly? The period goes inside the quotation, correct? Does it matter if the sentence is entirely in quotations?
25
@16: I believe you just won the thread.
26
Timothy, you did well. While there are a handful of exceptions (that you'll most likely never encounter), you're pretty safe putting all punctuation inside the quotation marks.
27
@24: I believe it depends on whether you're writing in the US or the UK. In the states we apparently prefer the period (or comma) inside the quote while in the UK they put the "full stop" or comma outside. I recall this has something to do with the US's frontier-era typography being susceptible to the hanging period breaking off if outside the quotes. (Although, now that I've written it, it seems a likely urban legend... I'm sure the grammar mavens at Slog will set me right if so.)

P.S.---BTW, it's D'Oh.
28
Funny, when I'm writing anywhere else I always, always stick to the MLA rule of putting the period or comma inside the quotation marks. But on Slog -- never. It just looks terrible.
29
Emma, that's a new one on me. Having actually set type in my life (just call me Etaoin Shrdlu), I find it pretty hard to believe (the type was all contained within a wooden frame, there's nothing to "break off"), but stranger things than that have happened in the history of the world, so who knows.
30
I rarely comment on Slog posts (there are enough idiot commenters as is), but I felt I must echo the sentiment @16 WINS.
31
Current Wired magazine article, about a recent scientific study, entitled "Nun Brains Show Language Skills Predict Future Alzheimer’s Risk" does not sufficiently differentiate between "idea density" and grammatical skill. I think there's a major difference.
32
#21, all of the following work, and none of them sounds stupid.

"That depends on which side of the Atlantic you are."
"That depends on which side of the Atlantic you live."
"That depends on whether you're American or British."
"That depends on whether you're writing American English or British English."
"That depends on whether you're in the US or UK."
33
@2: It's "deprecated," not "depreciated." And no, it isn't.
34
You all know that the snarky answers were meant to be funny, right? That they were written by "The Subversive Copy Editor"? That CMOS calls it "advice and humor"?
35
The pileup of grammar and punctuation errors in this thread warms the cockles of my little spelling-Nazi heart.

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.